Best of Artemis, week ending 30th March 2014

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 30th March 2014, on catastrophe bonds, reinsurance capital and related risk transfer topics, from the last seven days on Artemis. To ensure you never miss a thing  subscribe to the weekly Artemis email newsletter updates.

Top ten most viewed articles on Artemis.bm, week ending 30th March 2014:

1. El Niño forecast to produce less active hurricane season in 2014
   ImpactWeather has released its first 2014 Atlantic hurricane season forecast today and says that it expects the development of an El Niño by July or August to produce a less active hurricane season, with a below average number of storms forming.
2. Munich Re on competition and alternative reinsurance capital
   Senior executives from German reinsurer Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurance firm, discussed the high-levels of competition in the market and alternative reinsurance capital at some length during the firms analyst conference last week.
3. Watford Re: Capital raised, to start reinsurance operations shortly
   An announcement from Watford Holdings Ltd. and its wholly-owned reinsurance subsidiary Watford Re Ltd. says that the much-discussed casualty focused, third-party capital backed reinsurer is set to start underwriting shortly.
4. Lloyd’s Nelson: £3.2bn profit, pressure from new capital to continue
   The Lloyd’s insurance and reinsurance market has announced a pre-tax profit of £3.2 billion with a combined ratio of 86.8% this morning, but Chairman John Nelson warns that competitive pressures from new capital are set to continue.
5. Largest UK pension buy-in sees longevity risk reinsured immediately
   The largest UK pension buy-in and bulk annuity purchase has been announced today, involving AkzoNobel’s ICI Pension Fund entering into annuity buy-in agreements with Legal & General and Prudential to cover £3.6 billion of liabilities.
6. S&P: Alternative reinsurance capital anticipated in terrorism risk
   Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s said that while it anticipates some alternative reinsurance capital being allocated to terrorism risk reinsurance in the future, it expects the role of ILS and alternative capital in terrorism reinsurance to remain a minor one.
7. Will Lloyd’s look to embrace third-party reinsurance capital?
   Comments made by the leadership at the Lloyd’s of London insurance and reinsurance market, when announcing its annual results, may suggest that it is set to become more accommodating to capital from new sources and new markets.
8. Insurance linked investments outlook bright as hedge fund assets grow
   The future looks bright for insurance linked investments as institutional investors such as pension funds continue to grow their allocations to hedge funds and are increasingly willing to diversify into new asset classes such as reinsurance and catastrophe risk.
9. Oxbridge Re IPO raises $26.4m for collateralized reinsurance operations
   Cayman Islands based fully-collateralized reinsurance company Oxbridge Re has raised $26.4m from its initial public offering (IPO) of shares to help finance the next stage of growth for the reinsurer.
10. The downward trend in earthquake catastrophe bond yields
    In recent days the lowest yielding earthquake catastrophe bonds in the ILS markets history have priced, with U.S. primary insurer State Farm’s $300m Merna Re V Ltd. U.S. earthquake cat bond offering the lowest coupon ever seen for a pure quake bond.

This is by no means every article published on Artemis during the last week, just the most popular, some of which were published over a week ago. There were 20 new articles published in the last week. To ensure you always stay up to date with Artemis and never miss a story subscribe to our weekly email newsletter which is delivered every Wednesday.

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